More than 10 years ago, Tart (1990) described virtual reality (VR) as a technological model of consciousness offering intriguing possibilities for developing diagnostic, inductive, psychotherapeutic, and training techniques that can extend and supplement current ones. To exploit and understand this potential is the overall goal of the "Telemedicine and Portable Virtual Environment in Clinical Psychology"--VEPSY UPDATED--a European Community-funded research project (IST-2000-25323, www.cybertherapy.info). Particularly, its specific goal is the development of different PC-based virtual reality modules to be used in clinical assessment and treatment of social phobia, panic disorders, male sexual disorders, obesity, and eating disorders. The paper describes the clinical and technical rationale behind the clinical applications developed by the project. Moreover, the paper focuses its analysis on the possible role of VR in clinical psychology and how it can be used for therapeutic change.

The present study was designed to determine whether the behavior problems reported for hearing impaired populations educated in residential settings and among normal hearing populations were evident among hearing impaired populations in the public schools. Further, it was hypothesized that some behavior problems might be unique to the hearing impaired in the public schools. The Behavior Problem Checklist was used to rate 219 hearing impaired subjects by 33 teachers of the hearing impaired. The teachers. (raters) were randomly selected. The data were examined by means of a factor analysis which yielded five factors of behavior problems. Some of these factors have previously been reported, while others were unique to the population under investigation Results suggest a need for specific training in the area of behavioral disturbance for teachers of the hearing impaired in order to better serve this population.